In forest management, it is often desirable to be able to estimate the ages of trees within an area of interest. Such information can be used to determine when it is time to harvest the trees in the area or to perform other tasks such as thinning, applying fertilizer as well as for estimating value of the timber on the land, etc.
One conventional method of estimating the ages of trees in an area of interest is to cruise a portion of the area and make sample age measurements. From these measured samples, the ages of the trees in the entire area of interest can be statistically determined. As the sizes of managed forests, increase however, it is becoming cost prohibitive to cruise a sufficient number of sample areas in the forest to make accurate age predictions. Given this problem, many land holders are beginning to rely on remote sensing methods to analyze their forest lands.
While remotely sensed images of forest lands contain significant amounts of information regarding the land being imaged, there is a need for improved methods of accurately estimating the ages of the trees shown in those images.